Examination of abstraction, pattern recognition and algorithm design skills in the context of secondary school mathematics curriculum, teacher and student

The sub-dimensions of computational thinking skills such as abstraction, pattern recognition and algorithm design skills play an active role in mathematics education. The fact that mathematics is a science of abstraction and the majority of the concept of mathematics is the result of abstraction also makes it important to understand the knowledge creation process that includes abstraction in mathematics education. Students with pattern recognition and pattern recognition skills can easily understand and comprehend the relationship between mathematical concepts. Analyzing the encountered problems and expressing the steps for the solution in a simple way, in other words, designing an algorithm for the solution of the problem provides a short and effective way to reach the solution. This study aims to observe abstraction, pattern recognition and algorithm design skills in mathematics curricula acquisitions, to determine the awareness of 7th grade students in these three skill dimensions and to find out the awareness of mathematics teachers towards computational thinking skills. This research is conducted with a case study which is a qualitative research method. Document review form regarding the curriculum acquisitions, skills test regarding the students' abstraction-pattern recognition and algorithm design skills, in-class activities prepared by the researcher, student interview form and teacher interview form were used as data collection tools in this study. A pilot study was conducted with a class of 20 students for enhanced activities. The activities were finalized in the wake of an expert opinion and pilot scheme. By making the main practice with a class of 20 students, activity answer papers, in-class video recordings and interview audio recordings were analyzed. Activity papers were scored with a rubric prepared by the researcher. The document review form regarding the curriculum and the interview form applied to seven mathematics teachers to determine teachers' awareness were analyzed. As a result of the observation of abstraction according to grade levels, pattern recognition and algorithm design skills, it is seen that that three sub-skills correspond to each grade level acquisitions. While abstraction skill is the most common, pattern recognition skills are the least at every grade level. While it is seen that 55% of 7th grade students showed skills above the class average in activity papers for abstraction skills, 45% of them appears to have below-average skills. When it came to pattern recognition, 50% of the students exhibited skills above the class average, while the class average of 50% appears to have low-set skills. In algorithm design skills, 45% of the students demonstrate skills above the class average, while 55% perform below the class average. It is observed that mathematics teachers identify computational thinking as a problem-solving skill and to enhance that they make suggestions on course content, curriculum, teacher, textbooks, classroom environment and age group.